


The things you thought you knew

by iwantcandy2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantcandy2/pseuds/iwantcandy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feferi and Kankri meet in a dream bubble and exchange ideas. Biting ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The things you thought you knew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liasangria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liasangria/gifts).



> Written for liasangria, who wanted a caliginous meeting between Feferi and Kankri. Both of these characters are hard for me to write, but I actually ended up enjoying writing Kankri. Still not sure about Fef. She's a hard character for me.

Having an unholy elder god for a mother has its advantages. Example: One Feferi Peixes, former empress-in-line, current wandering soul. Wandering soul here is used in the literal sense, as opposed to a modern day hippie colloquialism.

The vast expanse of the afterlife is impossible for most souls to travel, seeing as how its true form is such that comprehending it sends most sentient beings into writhing throes of agony.

However, Feferi grew up speaking writhing abomination. She was like any child with ESL origins. Except instead of using Spanglish banter around the dinner table, she would hum and chirp the dark tunes of the end of all things. As such, she had the formless guardians of the dark to light her way through the void.

Mostly she used this power to plan picnics. Staying in her own dream bubble day after day was dreadfully boring. She had asked on several occasions where her friends were, but the response was always the same: hella far away. Since she had the rest of eternity to spend, she was in no rush to find them. The natural tide of cosmos would bring them together again.

And that is exactly what she thought had happened, when the horrorterrors sang to her of a nearby troll bearing the blood of a friend. Her stomach bubbling with excitement, she swam straight away to the bubble.

Breaching the bubble, she found herself in a memory that looked, smelled, and felt like Alternia, but was definitely _not_ Alternia. She had landed right in the middle of some sort of celebration. That was her first clue. On Alternia, the only thing they celebrated was slaughter. And 12th Perigree’s Eve, but apparently that was a celebration to mark the slaughter of an ancient dissenter or something. In any case, this celebration was marked with all sorts of colorful banners, laughter, music, none of it about violence.

Clue number two: there were adults. Mingling with the kids. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she’d say that some of the adults were interacting with the kids.

Madness.

Feferi didn’t know what this place was, but it looked awesome. Her think pan was aswirl with the myriad colors and sounds saturating the air like a thick fog. Reeling with over-stimulation, she walked forward on autopilot, following the crowd to the center marketplace. The place was packed with booths and stalls. She could smell a hundred different confections cooking, the smell so sweet she wanted to eat the air.

Whatever this strange, crazy, miraculous place was, they wrote all their signs in Alternian. This was how she noticed the booth labeled “Adopt a Wiggler!” Curious, she approached the kindly-looking jadeblood running the booth.

“Hi there!!” the jadeblood chirped. “You look a little young to take on the demanding and rewarding responsibility of parenthood, little missy. But perhaps I can interest you in our volunteer culling outreach program?”

“Culling program?” Feferi asked, her stomach sinking.

“Yes! We need a lot of help helping provide for the less fortunate members of society. Due to their short lifespan, they need volunteers willing to do the everyday tasks of life for them so they can maximize their regrettably minute time alive!”

She said every word with the force of a firework, practically radiating energy. Once Feferi realized that she was not, in fact, promoting infanticide, her enthusiasm rose to match.

“Really? You want volunteers to help some precious little lowbloods?” Feferi jumped up and down, her bangles clanging as she clapped her hands. “Oh my glub, this is the best idea ever! I love this place. Who’s memory even is this?”

“Mine.”

Feferi whirled around to see just about the most adorable little lowblood ever. He was short and pudgy and completely precious. Squealing, Feferi scooped him up into a hug.

“Aren’t you just the cutest thing!” she sang, pressing his body of babyfat and warmth close to her. “I just want to wrap you up and take you home!”

“Unhand me this instant,” the little troll retorted, flailing in her grasp like a cuttlefish caught in a net. Feferi had captured plenty of cuttlefish. They always flailed and fought when they were in the net, but once you put them in with the rest they were as happy as clams.

However, just to be courteous of the little guy’s feelings, Feferi relaxed her grip and took a step back. His face was even adorable when he was pouting, his thick bottom lip pressed out and his shoulders squared. Or attempting to square. They were too rounded to be intimidating.

“You should not violate other people’s personal space,” the troll told her, taking another step back to increase the distance between them. “Not everyone finds physical contact pleasant, and to force it upon a person without invitation could cause an increase in anxiety. Also, you must forgive me for speaking so bluntly and with no prior knowledge of your personal disposition, but it is a severe breach of a person’s boundaries to enter their dreams without permission. In an environment such as this, that is both a violation of the inner sanctum of a person’s subconscious mind as well as intruding upon their habitat. Such problematic behavior should be avoided, lest you trigger an individual with tight personal boundaries and reservations for oversharing without intent.”

“You look just like Karkat,” Feferi commented, her eyes lighting up with the revelation. “Why, I’d betta that you two are Ancestors or something.”

“Or something,” the other troll replied, crossing his arms and taking another half-step back. Or maybe it was a full step. His legs were so short it was kind of hard to tell the difference. “I am Kankri Vantas, resident of Beforus. And since you make mention of my dancestor, I must make the logical jump to assume that you are Feferi Peixes, no? Forgive me for any inaccuracy made by jumping to conclusions, but conditions are such that the pool of possible tyrian trolls to know is troublingly small, and as you are tyrian (I make another logical jump here, based on your manner of dress and cool body temperature (which I was only privy to anyways due to your violation of my personal space (as mentioned before, unwanted hugs (known colloquially as glomping in some circles) are a problematic practice and should be discouraged), so you will forgive me if I have made this judgment in error and you do not identify as tyrian-blooded) I feel I am relatively safe in assuming that you must be the dancestor of Meenah. As such, you were also the ruler of Beforus prior to the scratch.”

“You mean I…Beforus must be this place, right?” she asked, gesturing to the wide expanse around her. “So I _ruled_ this place? No wonder it’s so awesome!”

She giggled, and Kankri scowled 

“’Awesome’ is a subjective term, and as such cannot be definitively defined, but I would dare to suggest that it is a most inaccurate word to describe Beforus. This place is not ‘awesome.’ If you would care to set aside your own privileged perspective, I’m sure you would see the problems inherent in the demeaning practice of culling that you so enthusiastically endorse.”

Feferi squinted, focused on processing the deluge of words. It wasn’t that she was stupid, it was just that she had never talked to someone quite so loquacious. Well, maybe Karkat, but usually he was easy to understand. His insults were never veiled.

“What’s so wrong with wanting to help people that can’t help themselves?” Feferi asked, her smile falling from her face.

“The problem, as it were, is that you assume these people _can’t_ help themselves. You deny them agency and self-governance,” Kankri lectured, finger wagging a harsh metronome, “with your constant coddling. You do not see them as equals. Your condescension denies them the chance to grow as individuals.”

“Condescension? Ex _cuse_ me?” Feferi asked. 

“My apologies if that word is triggering to you. While I do not wish to cause you distress, I must point out that your obvious avoidance of that word belies a sense of guilt that-" 

“Oh no you didn’t!” Feferi interrupted. “You wanna glub about guilt? How about knowing that all your friends are going to die because of the ruling system you’re inheriting? You talk about ‘condescension’ like you think I’m selfish for wanting to save people! You- you never had to- to think about your friends dying.”

She had more to say, several elegant and well-thought out points about the duty of power versus rejection of class, but she was sniffling too hard to make them. Through the blur of tyrian tears, all she could make out was Kankri’s red sweater. She was literally seeing red.

“I feel a modicum of guilt for upsetting you, but I also feel like backing down from my viewpoints merely because they are upsetting you would be counter-productive to the betterment of my peers-”

“What peers? Your people are dead!” Feferi shouted, throwing her arms wide to gesture to the bubble around her. “These are ghosts. Less than ghosts. They’re only your memory. So how does it feel, mister stupid-sweater McNubbypants, to know that everyone you fought for is dead?”

“Name calling is not going to help further the dialogue, and is a disturbingly juvenile practice.”

“Your face is juvenile!”

“Don’t make fun of my stunted genes!” Kankri growled, his composure cracking like an egg under a stack of books.

“I thought you didn’t want people to handle you with gloves. Well, here!”

She shoved him, just hard enough to make him stumble back a few steps. As if he was iron inside a forge, Kankri turned a livid red. He sputtered, hands formed into squishy fists at his side.

“How dare you use physical aggression to try and silence me!”

“What a shame it didn’t work!” Feferi retorted, taking a step closer. Rather than shrinking back, Kankri matched her, stomping forward until they were toe to toe and horn to horn. They were both panting like dogs in the sun, trembling with rage.

“You are a- a privileged brat!” Kankri declared.

Leaning close enough that they shared the same breath, Feferi snarled, “And you’re kind of fat!”

With a rattling hiss, Kankri lunged forward and bit her lip. She returned the favor. They were growling too much for the bites to be anything more than stinging nips. Kankri tore into her facial fin, the visible sign of her caste, the mark of her privilege, the dainty fan of membrane cradling her face. She went for the pudge under his chin.

Soon teeth weren’t enough, and they were using claws. They were a heap on the ground, scuffling and snarling. As Kankri’s concentration broke, the marketplace melted around them, like an exquisite watercolor under the rain. Soon nothing was left, and they were just two angry trolls amidst stars, trying to take chunks out of each other.

When their anger was burnt out, they slumped against each other and panted. They were two bruised and bleeding idiots breathing each other’s air.

After only a fraction of eternity, Kankri shoved himself away and up, patting himself down as if he could dust away the scratches.

“I- I must apologize,” he stammered. “That is unprecedented, and no way to carry out an intelligent dialogue.”

Feferi smirked, stretching herself out with the slowness of a cat.

“Well, if you ever want to continue this… _debate,_ my dream bubble’s right over there,” she said pointing and winking. Before he could say anything more, she slunk off, a smile full of fangs creeping over her face.

Intellectual stimulation. It felt good.

**Author's Note:**

> I think these two characters have a great black chemistry. They are both inexperienced in spades, as well as afraid of their own hate, so I think they are pretty good black choices for each other. Funny as this may sound, this is probably the most romantic thing I've ever written. Black romance is fun!
> 
> Fun fact: the WIP title for this was "Fef-can't-Kan"
> 
> Also fun fact: You should check out my other stories, because they are guaranteed delicious.


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